


Chapter 5: Midnight

by mantra4ia



Series: Bucky x Reader: Words are the Best Weapons [5]
Category: Bucky Barnes - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers
Genre: AU, Bucky Barnes' Notebooks, Bucky x Reader, Drama, F/M, Fanfic, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Marvel-verse - Freeform, POV Alternating, Series, Slow Burn, Subtext, Work In Progress, imagine, turning point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-10
Updated: 2016-10-10
Packaged: 2018-08-16 02:24:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8083021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mantra4ia/pseuds/mantra4ia
Summary: Archetype: Bucky x Reader, alternating POVsChapter Snapshot: Good morning, Bucky.This is my original work of fan-fiction, please do not duplicate.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Previously: House Calls  
> Balancing a work and a personal life is challenging enough. Balancing two patients who, given enough time in the same room might start a war, both of whom tested the boundaries of your personal and professional life, was a masterclass in diplomacy.
> 
> After testing your hand at diplomatic international relations (at the Sokovian Accords Amendments Summit), and relationship counselling Tony and Pepper (which you strictly never do) you resolve to close off all your exceptions to the rules of professional procedure...when Bucky calls.
> 
> Exceptions are wearing you out, but you will put an end to them...tomorrow.

[Background music to score the chapter (optional)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCIB2SNiyRs)

**Your POV**

Wanda was doing her best to send a steady stream of soothing, calming thoughts into Bucky's sphere, but you could tell he was coiled tightly on the inside. You trusted Natasha's reconnaissance most out of all of them, and based on her report Bucky's current state was a two front problem – being plagued tonight by nightmares, and hearing word from T'challa that he and Dr. Cho were working together in the final stages of prototype for Bucky's new mechanical arm. The unanswered invitation to repair that which was twice taken from him.

Your work tonight was cut out for you. The other Avengers slept in shifts (operating outside the law would do that to you), and it was Wanda's turn to stand guard. When you met eye to eye, she seemed relieved. You weren't so sure that her trust in you was well warranted. After a few rounds with Tony Stark, you weren't exactly at your mental finest.

At first Bucky wasn't even aware that you were in the room. Since security seemed only a loose priority tonight, considering that you had been invited somewhere you clearly shouldn't be, you decided on drastic measures. Crossing the room, drinks in hand as you opened the bay window, you stepped out over the fire escape and back into the summer storm.

**Bucky's POV**

You glanced around at what could possibly be making that rattling noise when he felt his cheek, and noticed by the damp how moist the air had become. A gust must have blown open the window, but the wind wasn't that strong was it?

“On your left” called a voice, not Steve's, echoing in wisps that were eclipsed by the breeze. (Y-N) was sitting perfectly still on the fire escape stairs peering steadily over the alleyway. Without looking over her shoulder she said “Your drink is getting diluted.” She didn't move or command or even look up, but hung her head down on sagging shoulders, an elbow propped on each knee. You couldn't imagine a hair on her head that the rain hadn't soaked. How long had she been sitting out there before you'd noticed?

“How long have you been here?”

No answer. You walked to the window and out to the stairs, at which point she edged up three steps as a signal that you ought to sit down in front of her. The lack of cover didn't make you nervous, it was a good vantage point for your counter surveillance, but her silence was something new. “How long?” you repeat again.

“Half an hour, thanks for noticing. If it helps you didn't miss much. Same rain.” That meant you'd lost time again, which tightened the muscles in your jaw and twisted your nerves. “Don't worry,” she completed your thought, though slightly slurred. “You didn't lapse, you just lost track of time. You were thinking too hard. As a rule, that's not something I recommend highly to anyone. Do you know what I do recommend? Sleep. Sleep is good.”

“I can't”

“Or won't.” Bullet. Even under exhaustion she fights like a sniper.

“Won't.” You amend yourself.

“Then at least sit and rest your eyes while I finish your glass, and tell me about this nightmare of yours. Maybe super soldiers don't need as much sleep as the rest of us do.” You had a good deal of respect at the amount of freedom you felt when (Y-N) was around. You didn't have another session with her until the following week, which meant that Sam, Steve, Natasha, or Clint must have brought (Y-N) here. A risk, they all took too many risks for you.

"Past, present, or future?" she asked

Future is a bit presumptuous don't you think? "It was the past."

“Was it a mission you dreamt of?”

“No.” When (Y-N) stared intently enough at you it was as if she could freeze the very air. She was expecting more than one word, so you reluctantly sat down and closed your eyes. That's when the intensity of the rain began to build as you heard it clash with railing, roof, and road. “Though we were on a mission earlier, the rest of the team I mean. I'm not field ready. I listened to their comms and I monitored the live feed from their gear. It was an intelligence and extraction mission. A mid-level soldier from the Wakandan terror cell that T'challa has been concerned with was about to defect. We offered him a safe way in. But another group got to him first.”

This was something new. The terror group was allegedly a middle man. Perhaps this soldier was the link T'challa needed to expose the upper echelon who had coordinated the insurrection against him. “Who are the probables who want the intelligence this soldier had to offer, or who would want to keep intel from you?” (Y-N) asked.

“Aside from the terror cell itself, and remaining agents of HYDRA, and the central intelligence of every government who signed the Sokovian Accords out of fear of us?” You caught the sarcasm seeping into your voice.

“Meh,” (Y-N) disregarded your tone, as she did most things that got it the way of what she wanted. “You can count out out a good 95% of the Accords leaning countries. Aiding terrorism abroad and being caught does not sit well with the UN. Regardless of how much they fear Avengers armed with intel and agenda, it's only worth the risk to international reputation if there is a suspected sister cell in your country ready to go live at any sign of discord” She was very even keel sifting through the information before her, patiently passing the time in search of what she was after.

“Sam took sniper fire on the exit route. Tactically I could see it play out before it happened..."

“Bur he couldn't,” she completed your thought, alleviating the need to speak more than required. It felt good. Easy. Like breathing.

“He's alive, safe, just as talkative as ever...” (Y-N) spoke lightly, but you did not mistake her tone for casual. Harm had been done, she absorbed the information and its magnitude.

“Sam has a fractured collar bone, and Clint in the process of covering him, took a bullet that broke his tibia. He has three children that he might not have come home to tonight.”

“You could have covered them.” She said matter-of-factly.

“I could have covered them.”

“If you were field ready.”

“Mmmm.”

“And so when you dreamt tonight you were in the field,” she searched Bucky's expression, and finding no tell, went on. “Not as the Winter Soldier, I imagine...but as an ally, covering Steve and the Howlings. Not a nightmare after all. A wish.”

“Yeah, I covered the that. But I had two of my own hands back then.” You took a deep breath of the rain, it was not exactly fresh this deep into the city, but it was growing nearly loud enough to drown out your own thoughts, which you could appreciate.

“And therein lies the problem. You want to be field ready but this arm that T'challa has offered you,” so (Y-N) already knew as much from her overseas reconnaissance, “you hesitate to take it. Is it fear?”

There was no easy answer for it except to say, “I was the fist of HYDRA.”

“Ah...” What must she be thinking sitting there behind you? You heard her shoes sliding off her feet, and felt each foot slide down one step, so that they were no longer grazing the back of you but resting to either side. You wanted to open your eyes until she said, “I'm just stretching, don't mind me. I've been on 16 hours of flight in the past day, I hope you will give me a break.” You sat there hoping to hear anything else, but all around there was only water, until “just don't build a trap out of your logic Bucky. May I...” She gave you warning before she rested one hand on your right shoulder and the other just past with metal joint of the left. “Remember, a fist is a hand,” she tapped the left “a hand doesn't have to be a fist” she tapped the right, making little sense. She must be talking in her sleep now.

But she went on trying to clarify. “That's why I asked you before Buck, how many people have you saved? You still haven't given me an answer by the way.” You could sense she was becoming tired, not only by the weight of her hands on your back, but the lilt of her voice. She had never called you Buck before.

“A few hundred maybe, when I first enlisted,” was all you could think to reply.

“Multiply that number by 10 and you may be in the realm of accurate” (Y-N) began slowly after a slight delay, “Imagine how many of those men and women went on to have lives that touched others, families that have since grown, many still around today. Then reconsider the lives you've saved Buck. Being a soldier is not synonymous with being a killer. You are a first-responder, because someone should be. Your hands fight perhaps, but not all the time. They shield, carry, and repair. One day Bucky, you will be a soldier because you want to be, not because the world needs or expects it. It'll be your choice to stay, perhaps with Steve right beside you, or perhaps because saving people is where you find the most meaning. Or you might choose to set down your arms for someone else to carry and remake your life as someone new. But you should do it with both hands and both eyes open. You don't fight change or choice when all they want to do is shake hands.”

You opened your eyes to find (Y-N) drifting in and out of sleep. Her breaths were deeper, slower, constant, her eyes closed, her forehead resting on your neck. In that brief respite of calm, you felt well rested, but she was only just beginning to sleep, so quietly you said “the rain has died down.” For as tired as she seemed, she was still readily alert, though the words were slow to come to her. She was making some sense after all, if a bit more philosophical than usual.

“The rain is constant, it only sounds louder when you close your eyes because your mind has nothing else to divert it. Open your eyes and the storm subsides...never mind my shoes, I don't like them anyway.” It was impossible not to smile as her string of thoughts, no less sharp-witted but blurred and stretched with no recognizable beginning, middle, or end as a few more phrases went by.

“Are you ready?” you asked.

“Always ready...ready for what?”

“Be still. Arms 'round here," You steered her arms across your shoulders, "grab this wrist with the left hand, tight." Her fingers laced and locked unto her right wrist, a knot that rested just under your throat.

"What about these?" (Y-N) wiggled her toes.

You quelled the laugh in your chest. "Your legs are just fine where they are... but use your knees to hold on if you can.” You put your hand over both of hers to reinforce the connection. “Three, two,” and in a smooth push from your knees, you were both up, her on your back. “We're going back inside.”

“Hardly necessary...” She said. There was a considerable amount of slur to her speech now, so you weren't entirely sure if she objected to going in, or the mode of doing so. You considered a moment that she wasn't exactly featherweight. There was a good deal of muscle on her frame, but with the 50 pounds you had on her while being one arm shy, she was light by comparison.

“Well then, if you can walk, now's the time.” You immediately regretted ever having opened your mouth. In the half-light of consciousness, her feet swung loosely at your sides as if to walk, her toes jabbing at your ribs.

“Aggh, urrr, gaaaahrr, stop” you had to readjust her on your back to keep the both of you from over balancing into the rail. “What do you have raptor toes or razor blades hidden somewhere?”

“Razor toes...Commander James...soft to the core...not ready for field yet.”

“No, but soon,” you spoke nearly inaudibly.  

> **“Good morning.”**

“What did you say?”

“It must be midnight, that means the only acceptable greeting from now on is _good morning_.”

“Good morning, (Y-N).” In over 90 years, you could still learn a thing or two. You both stepped back inside.

Wanda watched Bucky curiously from her post. She could have lessened the rain on the ledge, but was glad now that she had only watched. Barnes shared a room with Sam, who had passed out on the spare sofa, leaving the room empty and the bed untouched.

You signaled silently to Wanda for the change of shift and she followed you as far as the bedroom door. The transfer to the bed was not remotely graceful, but did manage to be swift, silent, and without incident. “Wanda, could you...her clothes are completely wet.”

“I will take care of it.” Wanda said graciously.

* * *

  **Third person POV**

Bucky left the room with the door closed behind him for their privacy, did a perimeter scan, and went to the far front corner of the room nearest the door to wait out the remainder of the storm. In his mind he rehearsed first word of his sequence: "мост (Bridge)"

 Slowly surely, he added his two newest words until they became louder than the weather...Bridge- мост, Rainstorm - ливень, Bridge - мост, Rainstorm - ливень, Bridge - мост, Rainstorm - ливень...Morning - утро.  For the first time in a long while, it may prove to be _good_.

**Author's Note:**

> Next: Part 6 - Anniversary  
> None of this began with intentions (good or bad notwithstanding). You did not intend to ignore Bucky's calls. He had not intended to be late for his next session.   
> And yet somehow, when Bucky shows up for a fly-by-night appointment, fate seems to have guileful intent: an eye for an eye, one house call begets another.


End file.
